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Pugmire isn't just D&D 5e with animals. There's a few rules that are different that I think help drive home the specific intentions of the game. You also get the setting and all that material to plop your characters into.

So the primary reason? Pugmire does the base concept better than D&D 5e where you replace the characters with animals, because it's built with all the little rules changes you'd probably want to do already worked in.

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I don't have the means to do a point by point break down, because I don't own D&D 5e (played it, have friends with it).

But yes, you could do a lot of it with just an "aesthetic" change. Which is fine. But Pugmire - and to address why to buy it over just doing that - goes further. That's the answer to your question. The point to buying Pugmire is that it's more than an aesthetic change and a setting, it's also got rules changes (even if most are small tweaks not major overhauls, and frequently towards simplification).

It's not a matter of "need," as much as, "I'd find Pugmire more fun for the kind of game Pugmire wants to be, than D&D 5e without the rules changes," enough I bought Pugmire when I didn't buy D&D 5e (not that I'm against playing it, I just use my friends books when we do).

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Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau don't have D&D Races. Because that doesn't make any sense. If you're playing Pugmire, everyone's playing a dog. The dogs in Pugmire don't really have enough physical variation to justify trying to convert the D&D races. Instead, you have Breeds that take over that role to help expand characters. Like Races, Breeds are an inborn set of traits based very loosely on groups of dog breeds IRL. Like Races you can opt to pick very complimentary Calling (Class) + Breed combinations for being really good at something, or pick ones that allow for less direct potency overlap for more flexibility. Unlike Races though, the way Breeds work in Pugmire allows for the Mutt option for dogs that aren't from a family with pedigree. Instead of having to have a Half-X combo for every other Breed + Breed mating (and unlike D&D there's no reason to ban any Breed + Breed pairing as being a viable character like you can with Races), Breeds are simple enough that one Mutt option can let you decide how your dog's mixed lineage expresses itself.

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Pugmire/Mau has also changed the classes ("Callings") to reflect specific tropes and archetypes of its world - they loosely map onto traditional D&D classes, but it's not a straight 1:1 thing. Cat "wizards" focus on a certain subset of spells, including necromancy, while dog "wizards" are almost like hybrid bard/wizards in a lot of ways. Only dogs have "barbarians" (Strays) while only cats have "monks" (Wanderers). Dog Shepherds play much like a traditional Cleric, but Cat Ministers are a unique bard/druid hybrid kind of thing. Etc. etc. etc. Callings have 10 levels rather than 20, and you choose an ability at every level instead of having set upgrades.

Plus to be honest, a lot of it is for the world - the world of Pugmire is deeper than just "D&D with cats," there's some very cool lore about the Fall of Humanity and how dogs and cats rose to their current states, the nature of the world's particular demons (they feel pretty different from standard D&D demons), etc.

It uses a 5e core, but it's not *just* a reskin of 5e, there's more going on mechanically. And a lot of the world lore is really, really cool.

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I have Pugmire and have played it numerous times with both my 6 year old and 12 year old and her friends. We have an ongoing campaign that we get to when her friends stay the night (usually about twice a month or once a month at the least). My 12 year old has also been playing 5e with me and her cousins. I can't really add more than Heavy Arms and Tim4488 as they both hit the nail on the head. It's more than just a cosmetic change. Some of the internals have been changed as well. In all honesty, I think it's an amazing game and I think it really does what it set out to do in terms of grab the attention of a younger generation and get them excited about tabletop RPGs.